November 10th, 2020
It Came Today
I ordered the wrong one, but I am kind of glad that I did. When I first saw it I was wanting to get the keyboard Raspberry-Pi 400, but I ordered the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Complete Desktop Starter Kit 8GB Ram.
I am pretty happy about that. It seems it will be more versatile than one in a keyboard. I have not done any open the box post before, but I was pretty happy to get a new winter toy to play with, so here goes.
Everything neatly packed in the box, I was hoping for more of a manual but I suppose there is a lot available on line. The little put it together booklet could have been a bit more specific on things, but I managed. (Like there is a lot to put together. LoL)
It came with a fan, they did not say what direction to mount the fan label side up or down, a quick search for videos on fan installation and I saw that the label goes down facing inside the box. I hope the guy was right that did the video.
But the surprise part was the USB MicroSD card Reader. That I thought was great, I don't have a MicroSD card reader or any kind of SD card reader for my desktop, so now I can move files from one to the other if I need to.
And there it is the smart part. I should have taken a few pictures as I put the heat sinks on and hooked up the fan, but I wanted to get in all boxed up and ready to play with, which it is. It took a few hours for the software to download, and it still ended in an error but it worked when I rebooted it, so I am not to concerned with it.
The mouse cord could be a bit longer, like a lot longer, I am fine with the size of the keyboard, but the mouse, it really needs a longer tail.
I ran their SD card speed test, seems to me they would have supplied a card that would pass their own speed test but they didn't, but since it all seems to work, I suppose it does not matter.
I was able to connect to the internet and do a little bit of surfing, and I took my rocket to earth, (their simplified animation program tool).
Soon I will be learning a little bit more about programming. I have used the W3Scools for re acquainting myself with HTML, and they have a section on Python that I will be taking a look at, but any other Free learning sources would be nice to know about if you have a favorite.
If you're interested in some solid free tutorials I really found John Purcell to be fantastic. He's got a lot of free tutorials on https://www.caveofprogramming.com - and was instrumental in helping me understand programming in Java when I first picked it up. His field is largely in Java and C++ though - if you're more interested in Python, Udemy has some free courses, as does codecademy.com, and I've heard good things about this one from a friend: https://www.educative.io/courses/learn-python-from-scratch?affiliate_id=5073518643380224 (which I have bookmarked but my 2yo keeps me too busy to sit down and actually freakin try! lol)
Thank you I was hoping some would give me a few links to places to learn. I think I am going to start with the Python language, got both of those bookmarked for the weekend. I hope to have a fun winter learning.
It's an incredibly powerful and relatively simple little language - as a pick for a starting language to transition from HTML to full programming, it's a pretty good choice.
If you like books, and can find it for free or cheap, I very very highly recommend 'Automate The Boring Stuff with Python' as well. I think I got my copy in a give-away by the author a year or two ago and I've found it really useful.
Best of luck!
Congrats, you will get much enjoyment from the Raspberry Pi. I have 13 models collected over 8 years that they have been out, 1 monitors some wired temperature sensors, 1 monitors some wireless temperature sensors, 1 is on a tripod with camera module pointing out the front of the house so I can see what the weather is doing when down in the man cave. I am starting to build a simple Raspberry Pi controlled robot so that I can learn more python, I will be posting about that.
they do look like an enjoyable hobby, I am hoping it will keep me busy for our winter months in Alaska since I really don't like the cold.
And so it begins...
Yes it begins, I even got an email from them yesterday saying it is available in my area and asking if I want to pay to be a beta tester. (Elon Musk Starlink system).
That's pretty cool, do you think you'll do it? What's involved?
I don't think I will be signing up. It is only $99 per month unlimited, so cheaper than what I have now, but also slightly slower than what I have. I think I will wait and see what happens with it, one day it may get to the point where a smart phone would be able to connect through it then it would justify the expense of the smart phones.
So a little outlay, and then not a bad monthly price.
Hmm, ok...Clearly your Aussie friend the G-dog, is a clueless country bumpkin...I have no idea about all this stuff. Thanks for enlightening me. The words fighter jets get me excited...But clearly you don't get one of them for $499. 😄
I think it would not be to different from what I have now for an internet connection. We have a small dish on a pretty tall tripod that points to an antenna a couple miles away, and a wireless router. When we first got back here the phone companies wanted a leg and an arm and unlimited was not available, lo and behold when the tiny company moved in, the big company lowered prices and increased amount of time, and now offer unlimited.
I think that with the satellite system Starlink is building that will help a lot of the rural communities that are currently ripped off by the phone companies.
It's funny how the big companies get real with plans and pricing when a little competition comes along. Happens here too. Any yep, the rural areas get screwed over...Same here. I'm with Telstra, Australia's biggest telco...I believe their service to be better, although it may not be. I pay a little more for it than the others. They rely on that though, people too afraid to try the little guy.
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Thank you.
I suggest upgrading that microSD card to a larger capacity and a more reliable brand. My canakit SD card failed after only 3 months of use. ☹️ I recommend Samsung brand. And make sure they're super fast cards. The faster data transfer the better.
Something I will likely do. I have been pretty lucky with the SanDisk cards but they are not that fast, I use them because they are locally available.
You can find a list of free coding resources here.
http://new-aeon-design.com/resources/index.html
I liked the courses at freecodecamp.org a lot too.
Rpi's are a so much fun. They are great little computers and so much fun. I think I've got a PI3 running my Twitter bot and the news aggregator on my website. They're handy for so much.
Now that winters here I'll be doing a lot more coding again. I generally screw off all summer and code all winter through the cold months! Mainly HTML,CSS and I think I'm focusing on JavaScript and NodeJS all through this winter.
Enjoy the new Pi!
Thank you it is not easy getting back into the set up of a computer,and learning a new operating system, and finding where to find things, and people think Hive is hard.
Yeah, it takes time for sure. It comes to you with time though. I made the move to linux many years ago and it's my favorite operating system now. Once you start using it daily it just becomes second nature like Windows or any other OS. Eventually your comfort level grows as you become more knowledgeable. Good luck :)